Butterfly

I have recently started mediation and usually use one of the guided mediation or guided hypnosis on you tube. I usually fall asleep during them but last night i made a conscious effort to stay awake.

I was feeling really relaxed and then I was asked to look at my feelings and dig deep and think about old feelings and behaviours. My legs immediately felt fidgety and my shoulders felt tense and sore, even now as im typing this my shoulders feel tense and sore.

I had to get up a few times but did finish the session but probably not with the same effect.

Just wondering as anyone felt this way before or know why this happens??

Thanks

LexieCat

The meditation I'm most familiar with is the kind that has you focusing on breath and emptying your mind, not something where you are exploring painful feelings. Personally, I think that's best done with the help of a therapist who is trained in supporting you as you do that.

Butterfly

This was was about letting these feelings go and workinging on forgiveness

LexieCat

Right, but you're still processing painful feelings. I just think it's kind of risky to try to do that kind of thing on your own--especially given your history and some of the difficulties you've had. I'd definitely discuss it with your therapist--whether that's a good technique for you, personally.

Butterfly

thanks Lexicat, I think il stick with the meditation and trying to clear my mind!!

LifeRecovery

Butterfly-

I had a lot of physical symptoms come up in therapy/meditation.

They were big, often painful and at times scary. My guide (my therapist) helped me to work through them and to normalize the experience for me.

I also did a corse called Tension Releasing Exercises which helped immensely.

I needed support around these though.

lillamy

Butterfly, I'm doing something similar (except working with self-therapy, journaling, etc) and I think I would second Lexie's suggestion, if you can afford a therapist. (I'm so deep in the hole I can't.)

I have noticed, though, that when you start feeling your feelings, you start feeling worse. I even started having physical pain when I started digging through old baggage. So it may be a "feeling worse before you feel better" thing, but it's still kind of frightening to handle on your own.

Butterfly

Thanks everyone. I know what my feelings are, well the words to describe them anyway and why I feel the way I do. I try to sit with feelings and try to understand them but I don't always know how to manage them or what I'm supposed to do to let go of them and move on once I've identified them??

I just wanted to try anything that may have helped.

I suppose this comes from burying my feelings for so long

LifeRecovery

For me it did. My feelings were so buried they fermented. For me to feel them they had to be BIG.

It has gotten better with time. I think Lillamy said it perfectly. I had to feel worse before I got better. That is what my therapist (and body worker) helped with.

Butterfly

Thank you life recovery. Lillamy is right in that when I'm feeling something, I may not know what it is but I know I don't feel good and out of sorts but once I work through something then I feel good for a day or so then back to not so good.

I find it hard to sit with my feelings I try but then I get annoyed with myself because I may feel anxious or angry or some other feeling but not know why or how to deal with it. I want things resolved now I want answers now.

Not sure if I'm explaining this correctly.

FireSprite

It's the unexpressed emotions that you've buried Butterfly. Imagine you've stuffed them all down into an internal compartment & tightly sealed the lid. They'll have morphed (rotted) over years (decades) into physical manifestations & what you did last night started loosening the cap on that compartment, getting them all stirred up. Lexi's right, if you're not careful you'll rip the lid off too quickly & everything will scatter randomly rather than being dealt with. You know how when your gut instincts kick in you can "feel" it by a tingling in your belly or something, or how getting a hug actually makes you feel warm & fuzzy? It's the same kind of thing. Science is getting smart about how the emotions play into our physical feelings - if you google "physical manifestations of emotion" or something similar, you'll find all kinds of info from a variety of sources.

I agree with Lillamy too - working through these emotions hurts, but you have to go through it & deal with it in order to remove it. I'd back off anything too specific & try to stick to general meditations until you're ready for more detailed work.

Working through it doesn't just mean acknowledging the emotion, but ripping it apart to figure out what drives it.

I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm fearful. WHY? Identifying WHAT you feel is easy, figuring out why is intense. You have to follow that feeling all the way back - when is the first time I remember feeling this way? -what was going on in my life at the time? -what/who influenced it & why? - did it start as something else that became this thing you feel now?

Butterfly

Thank you firesprite I've felt so much pain and tension in my shoulders today since I posted and it hasn't eased!!

Your last paragraph is what I have been struggling with. Yes I can name my emotions but it's the rest I struggle with. I can remember my obsessive behaviours, hand washing and thinking, intense feelings of guilt and I would confess everything little thing I did to my mum, then the anxiety would ease, starting at a very young age but what triggered them I don't know that I can't remember!!

Many years later I went through a phase where I confessed to everything I had done wrong to my ex a during a period of separation. I even confessed to things I thought I had done but wasn't sure if I had but thought well if I think I ve done it I must have!!! My therapist at the time told me that I was confessing all this stuff to see if my ex a would still want me, could I tell him enough bad things so he won't want to be with me anymore then I will be right I'm not good enough!!

This feelings stuff is so hard! my previous counsellor would always ask me where in my body am I feeling the emotion the pain. At that time it was always my stomach in knots like feelings of anxiousness. Well now it feels as though I have a heavy weight on my shoulders!!

LifeRecovery

My stomach, my jaw and my shoulders/hips are common places this is for me.

Butterfly I just want to normalize that this is HUGE stuff you are working on. I went through periods of feeling cruddy (usually three weeks), would feel good for a week and then another "piece" would arrive.

Part of my support was slowing me down on these big pieces so I could get support underneath me and not take on more than was safe for me.

Butterfly

Thank you liferecovery.

iGirl66

Please find a book called "you can heal your life" by Louise Hay. Emotional pain is stored in the body like information stored in a computer. When you dig in like that, you're messing with the programing. You can inadvertently release pain and diseases rather than the past hurt.

There are other vids on YouTube that are positive affirmations that encourage you to let go of the pain a no negativity too, not just dig it up.

Butterfly

Thanks igirl. I did look for some of those last night the positive affirmations and the meditations for anxiety, self esteem and a few others.

I will check out that book too

Florence

I felt this way sometimes. My counselor said that if I was exploring these feelings, I would probably have some visceral reactions. Drink a ton of water and get extra sleep -- it's how you heal.